


folie à deux

by endquestionmark



Category: Hannibal (TV), Luther (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:04:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I love low expectations,” Alice says, raising one eyebrow. “They make it so much easier to surprise one, you know.”</p>
<p>“You have to know,” John says, “I don’t find you that interesting.”</p>
<p>Alice says, “You will.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	folie à deux

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/gifts).



> Warning for canon-compliant character death, manipulation, and an incredibly unethical psychologist-patient relationship. To clarify: consider this an AU where Hannibal Lecter-associated popular culture does not exist, and therefore a Hannibal!AU with John Luther and Alice Morgan, though there is admittedly no cannibalism. This is absolutely not what you asked for and for that you have my most profound apologies, though it does attempt to address What Happened Next in the context of this AU. With that caveat out of the way, best of the season to you and yours!

John Luther, they say, is nitroglycerine. He’s incendiary and unstable and a risk in all the worst ways. Rose Teller gives them - the reporters, the Internal Affairs investigators, the lawyers - her inscrutable, work-weary smile and asks if that’s all. On their way out, they note that the glass paneling of John Luther’s office is spiderweb-cracked again, held together with duct tape and, if the muffled sounds audible from inside the office are any indicator, a great deal of profanity.

One dismally damp October evening, John Luther stands in a cobble-lined back alley, the wool of his coat matting in the light rain. At his feet lies Justin Ripley, his former protege and partner. At the end of the alley, a gate in the chainlink fence flaps open, clattering in the noise-dampening fog. John Luther does not cry, and he does not fall to his knees; he stands there, a colossus, until backup comes, and even when backup is gone he stands there, a fixed point and a fulcrum. Rose Teller comes up to him.

“Come on,” she says, much more gently than she thought she was capable of being. “John, they’re holding the ambulance. You can ride along if you like.”

John Luther turns his spotlight gaze on her and she does not shrink back. “It’s the calm before the storm,” she adds. “Internal Affairs is going to come down on us like a tonne of bricks. Say your goodbyes while you can, John, because you won’t have a chance later.”

John Luther does not ride along in the ambulance, and John Luther does not say his goodbyes; what he does is go home to his wife, in their neat little flat, and he stands in the hall until she goes to touch him on the shoulder. Zoe Luther is a fine woman in every sense of the word - John Luther would say she is made of violin wire and bergamot, if he were given to such descriptions. If, at a certain point, he had read Byron instead, he would wax poetic about Zoe Luther until the end of days. Instead, John Luther is given to describing people in terms of height, build, and vehicle type and plate number. She takes up very little space, not simply literally, and is gentle in the way only an incisive person may be.

She is gentle now, pressing a hand to his shoulder, and John Luther moves then, hunching his shoulders up as though he is shaking out intangible wings, an outward rush of pressure that makes her step back.

Zoe Luther calls Rose Teller on the number that she has had programmed into her mobile since the day she married John, and has hoped every day that she will not have to call, not today, just give me one more day. Just one day.

“You said you wouldn’t let him get too close,” she says. Zoe is gentle but she is all edges now, all accusation. “I told you not to, and you did.”

Rose sighs, not in exasperation but in resignation. “He’s no better than,” she says.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been _worse_ before,” Zoe says, “I will grant you that, but no. No, he is not better.”

“Let me make a few calls,” Rose says. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Luther. He won’t be alone.”

“He isn’t alone,” Zoe says, because it is true, but also because Rose Teller isn’t the one who holds John until he stops shaking when he wakes at three in the morning. Rose Teller sees John in his long coat like armor and his red tie like a noose and never when he is sitting in the kitchen, head in his hands, mug of tea forgotten and long-cold. Rose Teller knows John the way a fellow officer does, but she does not know him with his guard down. Zoe doesn’t blame her - it took a long time for Zoe to know him that way, as well, and she was actually trying. Rose doesn’t want to know John that way, which is probably for the best.

“I’ll call you right back,” Rose promises, and hangs up. Zoe stands in the hall, staring at her husband’s broad back, and listens to the dial tone for a long time.

++

A phone call doesn’t do it, of course. Rose calls Ian, who calls Dr. Schenk, who makes some referrals, and then there is an interview to be had - some people must be met in person. Rose takes the time to look around the waiting room, all chrome-and-white chairs and utilitarian coffee tables, straight lines in teak and silver. On the wall there is a print of some sort, probably astronomical and vaguely Freudian. There are white peace lilies on the coffee table, as well as a selection of periodicals, with very little to indicate any of the interests of whoever placed them there. The desk by the door stands empty and bereft, cleared off entirely.

“Ms. Teller,” someone says, and Rose stands, looking away from the desk guiltily. She can’t help but feel she’s been caught prying.

“No secretary,” she says in explanation.

“No, sadly,” the woman in the door says. “I had one - he was a dear - but he left unexpectedly. Something about returning to his studies, I think. A mixed blessing, really.”

“There’s always something new to learn,” Rose agrees, and crosses the room, hands in her pockets. “Dr. Morgan, I presume?”

“Correct,” she says, and smiles. Her lipstick is bright red, as is her hair, though the rest of her attire is as monochrome as the waiting room. “Do come in.”

When the door is closed behind them, she motions to the desk in her office. It looks more administrative than anything - there is a computer on the desk, a beautiful view of London out the window, a certain industrial air to the polished aluminum of it all. “Shall we?”

“This isn’t about me,” Rose says, because there’s no point being coy about it. “I’m here to see if you’re available to consult on a...” she pauses, before settling on “case.”

“Ah, field work,” Dr. Morgan says.

“Precisely,” Rose says, greatly relieved. “Would you happen to have heard about the shooting last week? I would have been here sooner but you are a busy woman, Dr. Morgan.”

“That I am, and that I have,” she says. “Detective Justin Ripley, unknown shooter, no witnesses.”

“One witness,” Rose says, and Dr. Morgan tilts her head.

“I see,” she says. “You want me to find you answers, or help with grief counseling? I thought you had profilers and in-house professionals for that, unless.” Rose feels profoundly uncomfortable for a minute, as though she is known entirely to this stranger, and being toyed with. She has watched autopsies and felt an intense discomfort on the behalf of the corpse. There is a sort of nakedness conferred only by being without one’s skin, ribs spread open. She feels it now, a chill, and fights off a shiver of disgust as Dr. Morgan goes on. “Unless the witness is one of yours. A detective, that is, the golden mean, yes, that _is_ a puzzle, isn’t it. Someone who could give you the answers, but who could _be_ the answer, and either way, someone who needs to be pieced back together, isn’t that right.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Rose says.

“But,” Dr. Morgan says.

“But yes,” Rose says. “Will you do it?”

“Is it his partner,” Dr. Morgan says. “Is it John Luther?”

“How do you know about John Luther?” Rose says, not bothering to mask her defensiveness. She is no longer sure it would do her any good to put on such a facade anyway. “He hasn’t published anything or turned up in the news lately.”

“But he has assisted on some _fascinating_ studies on criminal psychology,” Dr. Morgan says. “I do like to keep track of rising stars.”

“I’m impressed,” Rose says, against her will. “Yes, you will be working with DCI Luther. If you accept.”

“Excellent,” Dr. Morgan says. “When do we begin?”

++

The interview room is not spacious. There is enough room for a table against the wall, an analog tape recorder occupying the angle where the two meet, and for two metal-frame chairs, and for the two people occupying those chairs. Alice Morgan sits up very straight, head tilted in the way that so unsettled Rose Teller. John Luther is hunched over in the opposite chair, still managing to dwarf her.

“Dr. Morgan,” he says.

“DCI Luther,” she says.

“John,” he says, “and I don’t need this.”

“This,” she says, gesturing at the room at large, “or _this_?” She twists her wrist to frame her face in an eloquent gesture.

“Both,” he says. “Sorry, Dr. Morgan -“

“-Alice,” she says, and he shrugs.

“Alice, then,” he says. “Either. I’m fine -“

“- You’re clearly not,” she says. “But carry on.”

“- and there is no way you could help shed any light on,” he says, and pauses. “Ripley.”

“I love low expectations,” Alice says, raising one eyebrow. “They make it so much easier to surprise one, you know.”

“You have to know,” John says, “I don’t find you that interesting.”

Alice says, “You will.”

++

Two days later, John receives a call on his mobile.

“Hello,” he rumbles.

“John,” Alice says, voice crisp and light as ever. “If you had to choose between what was right and what was just, what would you do?”

“What is just is always right,” John says without thinking. “Was that a test? Don’t test me. I _hate_ tests.”

“Just a question,” Alice says. “Would you like to get coffee later?”

John stops dead in the middle of the street. “We’re not friends,” he says.

“Professional coffee,” she says. “One coffee doesn’t make us friends, you know.”

“We’re not professionals who get coffee,” John says. He has a contact. He has a contact who has a lead, better yet.

“Your loss,” says Alice, and hangs up.

John does not bother to listen to the dial tone.

++

Alice turns up at his office with coffee the next day. The window has been replaced. She runs her fingers across the surface of the glass nonetheless, as if she can feel the ghost of the chips struck from the surface from John’s latest fit of -

“Wrath,” she says, when he opens the door. “Any other deadly sins?”

“Pride,” he says, and grants her a rare half-smile. “You are very certain of your ability, Dr. Morgan.”

“Alice,” she says again.

“Alice,” he repeats. “Why’re you here?”

“I’ve got a present for you,” she says, “if you come with me, that is. I’ve a cab waiting downstairs.”

“I’m on duty,” John says automatically.

“A present in the name of _justice_ ,” she says, and immediately smiles, one of those wickedly sharp curling-bracketed expressions that is the opposite of comforting. “I’ve always wanted to say that, did you know.”

“I’m serious, Alice,” John says, and the smile is suddenly one of triumph.

“No reminding needed that time,” she says. “Third time lucky.”

“Third time careless,” John says.

“Isn’t it the same thing?” she says. “Are you coming?”

“No,” he says.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” Alice says. “Bring your coat. Bring gloves.”

“No,” he says again.

She shrugs and leaves him there, pulling on her own black leather gloves in the elevator on the way down. She pauses in the lobby and peruses the notice board, which details such sundries as missing children (she raises an eyebrow) and holiday parties (she smiles wryly) and no less than four and a half minutes later, the elevator doors slide open.

“I hope you brought gloves,” she says without turning around. There have been no footsteps, but there is the pressure of John Luther’s regard on the back of her neck. It is no small regard.

“I hope your cab is still there,” John says.

“Have I disappointed you yet?” Alice says. He doesn’t reply, which is really answer enough.

++

“Thank you,” Alice says to the driver, in the middle of nowhere, more or less. The cab has stopped next to one of the brownfields scattered throughout Havering. “We’ll walk from here.”

John steps out of the cab - never a particularly dignified motion at best, but feeling off-balance as he is he feels even more at a disadvantage - and feels gravel crunch beneath his feet.

“Alice,” he says, “where are we going?”

“For a walk,” she says, slamming her own door, and the cab spits stone fragments at them as it executes a sloppy but adequate three-point turn and disappears westward. “Shall we?”

John, on a whim, offers her his arm.

“How gallant,” she says, “but I don’t suppose you’d give me a boost instead?” She motions at the fence.

“Alice,” he says, and stops when she raises an eyebrow at him.

“We can probably go around instead,” he says, and she gives him a genuine smile of delight and surprise.

“Why, John,” she says. “How gratifying.”

“Don’t push it,” he says.

“Oh, don’t tempt me,” she says.

++

The warehouse, when they find it, is gutted, parts of it merely a framework of girders.

“Ian,” Alice calls.

“Ian?” John says.

“John?” Ian says.

“Alice,” Alice says. “Now that we’re all caught up, Ian, how would you like to tell John about how you’ve been passing information on for years? What about how you have that contact on the wrong side of the tracks, Ian? How do you keep up cameraderie there? It must be very tricky, crossing that moral line and coming back up smelling of roses. For you do stink, Ian, you are as perfumed as the lilies of the field, but what about that failed negotiation last year? What about Jessica Carrodus’ kidnapping? You made that deal for the diamonds, didn’t you, you held off the investigation long enough for Daniel Sugarman to torture the information out of her - quite a job, once they’d sent you her tongue, but I suppose needs must - and then to slice her open like a gutted fish. Did you open the parcel with her tongue, Ian? Did they wrap it up in sandwich paper or was it in an envelope or a bag from the bins behind the loft? Did it flop about? I’ve heard the nerve impulses linger, but I’ve always erred on the cerebral side of biology.”

John Luther doesn’t say anything. Ian Reed, caught in the deluge, looks as if he cannot decide whether to stand firm or flee, and John thinks he looks strangely relieved.

Alice goes on, merciless, and John thinks she is practically gleeful, a wolf panting for the kill. “Justin Ripley, Ian, was a good man, no matter what else he was. He may have hitched his wagon, if you will allow me, to a rather erratic star, prone to going nova, but he was above all a good man, and a good detective, and not afraid of hard work. He was the sort of man who stays late at the office, after Jessica Carrodus has died of her wounds - gastric acid contaminating the abdominal cavity, probably, with some sepsis for variety - and wonders if he could have saved her, you see. He sits and tries to figure out what to do better next time. He does not let guilt drown him but he does not let it roll off his back either, not like you, Ian. And he comes to certain conclusions, and he brings those conclusions to Rose Teller, and she tells you, her best friend, and one day - well, Ian, would you like to tell John that part?”

Ian shakes his head, wordless. John Luther stands up straighter with every word, terrible and equally silent.

“Well, that’s when you engineer a break-out, isn’t it?” she says. “It’s very simple, I’m sure, though I haven’t thought about it much. Some dangerous suspect gets past you in the hallway - makes his way out through a mysteriously unlocked door, I suppose - and the only thing to do is to give chase, isn’t it? And then, well, these things do happen, don’t they. In the fog, it’s so very easy to lose track of a suspect. It’s so very easy to mistake one person for another, isn’t it?”

“John,” Ian says for the first time, “you don’t believe her, do you? She’s a psychologist, for fuck’s sake. She gets off on playing with the insides of your head.”

“Oh, I do,” Alice says, “but I’d much rather let him do that for himself. It’s much more interesting when you see what people do all by themselves, isn’t it?”

Ian, eyes fixed on John’s impassive face, does not see her cock the gun, but he does hear it, and she takes careful aim at his center of mass.

“John,” she says, “a life for a life is just. A life for a life is right. I say we shoot him. Ian, presumably, would have you spare him. You have the privilege of the deciding vote.”

“It’s not right,” John says. “It isn’t.” John Luther is not the sort of man to let his voice waver. John Luther stands tall when he speaks, hands folded behind his back.

“But is it just,” Alice says. “Will you do what is right, John, or what is just.”

“For God’s sake, John,” Ian says, and John becomes fluid once more, a human rather than a monolith.

“Alice,” he says, and covers her hand with his own.

“ _Thank_ you,” Ian says, “for heaven’s sake, Dr. Morgan, what the hell are you playing at -“

And there he stops, because John has taken the gun, and John has not clicked the safety back on, and John is pointing the gun at Ian’s chest, and Alice is beaming at him like a proud teacher.

“Ian Reed,” John says.

“ _John_ ,” Ian says, “don’t you understand, it was her or a hundred others! I give them one and they trust me for a hundred others. One life for a hundred, John, wouldn’t you do the same, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that right? Isn’t that just?”

“Yes,” John Luther says. “One life for a hundred, Ian.”

The light that dawns in Ian Reed’s eyes is terrible, and his mouth falls half-open, and he says “John -“

John Luther shoots him in the chest, twice, at point-blank range. Ian Reed does not have much time to look startled before he crumples.

The warehouse is silent.

When Alice goes to lay a hand on John’s shoulder, he does not flinch away.

She smiles.

++

They are in an awful hotel in Bloomsbury. John has an overnight bag, full of all the identification he can find and a change of clothes. Alice is cleaning his gun as if she has done it before. She has a scalpel laid out on the coffee table and a selection of artist’s pens, next to his driver’s license, and an overnight bag by the sofa.

“You don’t have to do this,” John says. “You can chalk me up as a failure, you know. Go back to your practice. Go back to your patients and your retirement fund.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, John,” Alice says, and presses a finger to her lips. “I haven’t got a retirement fund.”

“You’re a psychologist,” John says, “isn’t it your job to plan for the future?”

“Only if I plan to have one,” Alice says. “Alice Morgan - while a pleasant name, I must admit - is no more.” She indicates her bag with one stockinged foot. “A host of others, on the other hand, are ready to take her place. Have you considered New Mexico? I’ve always wanted to see the Very Large Array, you know. For a while I thought I might go into astrophysics, but in the end the allure of the human psyche won out.”

“I suppose it’s as good as anywhere,” John says.

“Good,” Alice says. “Because I already booked tickets, and it would be such an inconvenience to change them, as we’re due at Heathrow at five tomorrow morning.”

John actually laughs at that, and she smiles back at him. “Dr. Morgan,” he says, and she does not bother to correct him. “Is this all one big adventure to you?”

“What else should it be?” she says, genuine curiosity in her voice.

++

Later, the sky over London lightening to grey in the nauseously early hours of the morning, John pulls himself upright on the lumpy sofa. “You never said why you did it,” he says. “Why you helped me.”

“Well, you did help me first,” she says, and he tilts his head.

She clarifies. “You answered something for me,” she says. “Just or right, if you’ll recall?” He nods. “Well, I thought I could answer something for you. Rose Teller did call me in to consult on more than just your stability, you know. She did want my help with - Ripley.”

“And?” John prompts.

“Well, not many people will practice what they preach, shall we say,” Alice says. “ _Quid pro quo_ , John, _quid pro quo_.”

“You also said _a life for a life_ ,” John says. “That’s not a very fair trade.”

“All in good time, John,” Alice says, “all in good time. You should try to sleep. In the morning we must fly, fly, fly.”

“Fly away,” John murmurs, the fatigue he has been warding off for hours now settling into his bones.

“Fly,” Alice agrees, whispering it like a benediction, curled up watchful in the armchair, and it is to the sound of her voice that John falls asleep, the all-wrong steel light of pre-sunrise creeping into the room around the curtains, and it is her voice that steals into his dreams, and makes them more bearable.

++

In the morning, she is still there, alert as ever, already dressed. John shaves and dresses.

“You’ll have to lose the coat,” she says, almost apologetically. “It’s very distinctive, and I’m led to believe there’s very little call for such things in the American desert.”

“Don’t worry about it,” John says, and shakes it out anyway, settling it about his shoulders one last time. He considers the room, picking up his duffle bag, and considers Alice, and makes a decision.

He offers her his arm. “You won’t make me climb a fence this time if I do this, will you?”

“Not just yet,” Alice says, “but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility. Fair warning.”

“Fair warning,” John agrees. “Shall we?”

She takes his arm.

++

“One day, you’re going to kill me, aren’t you,” John says in an undertone. They have window seats. The plane is taxiing for takeoff. It is not the optimal time to have this conversation, but then there really aren’t many better options, and it’s not particularly a question anyway. Alice Morgan has killed before - that is also not a question - and she will kill again. The answer to that was clear from the very beginning, if he thinks about it hard enough.

“No, John,” she says, and for some reason he believes her. “No, John, I think - do you know what I think?”

“Never,” he says.

“The world’s more interesting with you in it,” she says, and the runway falls away beneath them, and the sky opens up before them, and Alice Morgan smiles, and John Luther is hard put to separate the one from the other.


End file.
